Design Fiction: Ilona Gaynor’s perfect bank heist

*Since this effort is sheltered by a design school, it’s design in origin, but one feels it needs some more accurate generic term than “design fiction.” I don’t doubt that imaginary bank heists are very interesting (and hopefully fictional), but it seems odd to rank a creative effort of this kind with, say, Corning videos about how nice it would be to walk around stroking glass panes all day. It doesn’t seem to play to the same audience or convey the same affect.

*”Forensic aesthetics” is quite an interesting concept. Maybe this work should be ranked with the likes of historical re-enactment experiences — dressing up with meticulous Civil War detail to re-play Pickett’s Charge.

What will be the purpose of the deconstruction? To design the perfect bank robbery?

Yes. Exactly that. My intention is design the perfect heist. A counter measure to anticipated police reactions based on this research. But not presented as projection like a pre-planned, straight-up plot, but one told through hindsight. Using aesthetics and material form to frame the narrative as an investigation, an archive of evidence for the purpose of constructing, a legal argument.

Finally, what shape does the project take: the project page has models but do you also plan to add 3D renderings? video? essays?

This project is simply a study – a deconstruction for the purpose of seeing something from a birds-eye view (not literally) but a plot device to experiment with. This first part was completed whilst I was the summer research resident at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. The final project will take the form of artifacts, large scale engineered mechanical devices, architectural physical studies, speculative tools and materials. There will be films – my aim is to shoot Police reconstructions of what they assumed to have happened. There’s a lot to do!

A book or research will also accompany the project, a series of essays and collated documents curated and co-written by Geoff Manaugh (BLDGBLOG) and myself.

The final work will go into an exhibition on display next year at the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, it will be showing in an unused bank vault comprising of 6 rooms in September 2013.